Helping a student discover what they're good at
This is for you when a capable student goes blank after you ask what they're good at. Not because there's nothing there. No one has handed them the words, and the question feels like one they can get wrong.
Nothing is wrong with this student. The question is just badly built. "What are you good at?" asks someone with almost no work history to summon evidence they've never been asked to collect.
Recognition is easier than recall. Give them something to react to.
Their results already hold it. Open Discovering Your Strengths with them, near the front of their Career Discovery report. It lists their top ten strengths, ranked. If that feels like a lot, the Overview page shows the top strengths at a glance.
Now do this, together.
- Ask them to read the ten slowly and pick the three that sound most like them. Not the three that sound impressive. The three that make them think, that's me.
- For each of the three, ask for one real moment it was true. Not a resume line. A specific scene: a class project, a shift at work, a night they got a group unstuck. Small counts.
- Write each strength down in their words, with its moment next to it. Three strengths, three scenes. That page is theirs to keep.
A strength with a real moment behind it stops being a word on a screen and becomes something they own, ready for a major, an application, a hard interview.
You did not tell them who they are. You handed them a mirror and stayed while they looked.
Coaching questions
This isn't a script. Once a student recognizes themselves, pull whatever fits:
Recognizing it
- Which three sound most like you? What made those three stand out?
- Which one would someone who knows you well pick out first?
- What surprised you on that list?
Making it real
- When did that strength last show up? Walk me through what happened.
- What felt easy to you there that isn't easy for everyone?
- How did people react when you did it?
Carrying it forward
- Where could this strength do real work next term?
- How would you say this one out loud, in your own words?
For more range, the strengths question bank ladders from recognition to deeper use.
